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JAT Company Update: September 2020

This year has been quite a decade so far, hasn’t it?

We thought we had a good game plan for our theater company dealing with COVID, since our first main production could be recorded remotely and we weren’t planning to air the next production until October… which is now next month!

So there’s some schedule changes we have in the works. Our production of “Prince Prigio” will finish out September, we’ll have some new stories for Through a Glass, Darkly, and then, at least on the airwaves, we’ll have rebroadcasts of Rogue Tyger.

Also, given some of the queries, feedback, and website traffic we’ve received regarding our discussion of The Mind’s Eye, the audio theater group that produced lots of wonderful productions in the 1970s and 80s, we’re looking into creating an online home for some of this knowledge (Wikipedia, as many of you know, likes their Wikipedians to cite online research, not originate research).

So, if you’re not already signed up for our mailing list, consider that. And of course, if you think you’d be up for supporting us via Patreon, we would appreciate that greatly.

That’s also where you’ll get an expanded version of this update.

We hope you all are staying safe and staying creative.

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We’re in the “finals” for the People’s Choice Podcast Awards. Please Vote!

We were pleased to learn that Jabberwocky Audio Theater made the final nominee slate for the People’s Choice Podcast Awards in the “Storyteller – Drama” category.

For those of you who don’t know, these are among the oldest podcast awards out there (it’s their 15th year) and the competition to get into this final slate of nominees is fierce. 

Out of 800 shows and close to 500,000 listeners across all categories, we made the cut. And I’m given to understand that there may have been as many as 50-60 podcasts angling for a nomination in the “Storyteller – Drama” alone.

So making the slate is an honor in and of itself.

Of course, some of you must know about the People’s Choice Podcast Awards, because otherwise we wouldn’t have been nominated.

BUT, the final voting is underway now through Sunday, September 13th, so if you haven’t voted already, you can register on their site and vote — and thank you for your support!

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The Worst Derelict Spaceships to Board

We didn’t get the idea of a crew boarding a derelict spaceship in a vacuum — wait, that didn’t come out right…

Our live production of Nostromo 2: Electric Alien Boogaloo is based on the many tales of crews exploring derelict spacecraft which inevitably leads to mayhem.

Well the folks over at Generation Films know all about this kind of mayhem, so they’ve compiled a list of ships you should definitely not board (as well as some other safety tips).

Warning, this will have spoilers for

  • The film Ad Astra
  • The TV series The Expanse
  • The video game Dead Space
  • The film Sunshine
  • The film Alien
  • The film Predators
  • The film Event Horizon
  • The film Pandorum

We’re still bummed we don’t get to do another live show like Nostromo 2 this year, but we’ll see about the future.

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Adapting Fairy Tales for Radio

Since we’re deep in the land of fairy tales with, it felt like a good time to some of the considerations we’ve had in adapting the stories you’re hearing on Through the Looking Glass.

For the most part, we’ve tried to keep to the straight text from a particular translation or version wherever possible. There’s two main reasons for this.

Firstly, it makes the production that much easier if we aren’t spending as much time adapting the work (if you’ve listened or read some of our other behind-the-scenes, you know some of our original series are written over the course of years). Now we do often need to examine several versions of a tale and sometimes synthesize a combination of versions, but that’s still less writing work than completely original scripts.

Secondly, we usually like the written version. It usually has more depth and more nuance than versions we may have seen adapted for the screen. There’s often darker tones here and there as the monsters can be truly monstrous, the heroes a bit more flawed, and the setbacks more charmingly convoluted.

That said, we have noticed a few issues that we have to look out for in every fairy tale as we set about adapting it.

For those of you who are backing us on Patreon, check out the full version of this post as this month’s bonus content!

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Listen Online! JAT Chat # 7 – May 2020

Bjorn and Bill talk about our upcoming 2020 season, including Through the Looking Glass and Quorum, and talk about how we’re figuring out how to do things when we’re all remote.

Length: 15:50

Rated AD-G, because we’re basically just talking.

Rated AD-G (Audio Drama “G”)
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May the Fourth Be With You! Star Wars Giveaway Time

We’re racing to get stuff ready for our 2020 season, but as folks on our mailing list know, we’re squeezing in one more giveaway before then.

And considering the week we’re in, it only made sense to do a Star Wars-themed giveaway.

For those of you who don’t know about the giveaways, we band together with a bunch of other independent creative folk, pick a bunch of goodies around a theme that we’d love to win ourselves — and then we put it out into the social media world. At the end of this week, someone wins all the goodies listed below.

So many of us here at JAT grew up with Star Wars and we thrilled to The Mandalorian this past Fall. Plus, listeners of Rogue Tyger have noted there’s a little bit of Captain Solo in Reg Macorum, and hey, next season they’ll be spending more time on the Frontier, what in the Star Wars galaxy would be the Outer Rim. So this giveaway just felt right.

So if you’re tempted by this giveaway, sign up by this Friday, May 8th before 6:30pm ET, because that’s when it ends.